There Is No Suffering Outside the Mind

[Reading from the Zoom chat] Next one says, ‘I have realised one thing, suffering is in the mind only, mental stories. There is no suffering outside mind. Without the mind I become like a kid.’ [Yes, the innocence of a child.] Now I have given a challenge to myself to find some suffering except in the mind.’ It’s okay as an experiment [Chuckling] but don’t make it into a thing because if you make it into a ‘thing’ it will become another ‘thing’, another source of suffering. You say, ‘Whenever suffering comes I ask just this question, “Is it in the mind only or outside the mind?”’ Very good. It’s sounding very good. ‘I have not found one suffering outside the mind till now.’ Beautiful. Very good, very good. ‘One thing also happening is slowly I’m realising the suffering person was also in the mind.’ The suffering mind, the minds representative, or, let me see if I can out it more clearly, the narrative is determining that there is an existent entity there. But there never was. Just like you read a story, like I used to read, the chronicles of Nan. So after reading the chronicles of Narnia then you feel like, you conjure up all the imagery based on all the concepts that you received of all the characters in the book. So I had a notion of Aslan, even so that it felt like I had a relationship with that Aslan. So in the same way we’ve conjured up a non-existent entity based on just the narrative that we’ve received through this voice. And because the voice claims to represent somebody doesn’t mean it actually exists. So when we say that ‘the person is just in the mind’ we are saying that mind itself is only claiming to represent something personal or a reality which is limited, but actually there is no such thing. Nobody actually comes into existence. If there was an existent entity, we could reach that somewhere in time and space and say, let’s do an operation, pluck that out and throw it away, ‘Hey [Makes a gesture of throwing away] gone, done with this person.’ But it’s not that. It’s just like you start imagining yourself to be…on the Narnia theme…a prince or princess, then you would start thinking like, ‘Oh, my palace would be like this, and this is what I would really want and these are things which are good and these are things which are not good…’ in very little time it can seem like there is very real entity like a prince or princess. So, because in the appearance we seem to have some circumstantial evidence, the mind will come and say, ‘But I’m not like that, I have this to show you [ points to the body]’ but that’s all fraud because this [body] does not want anything that you want. This does not know ‘want’. It is very very innocent, this body instrument. Has no desire. Has no concept of past or future. It’s just so naturally present. So we cannot make this appearance of the body the culprit. It is the fictional one that desires, that wants, that has ideas, that causes all the suffering. So there is no such person also in the mind although the voice seems to represent someone. Then you say [reading from chat] ‘A thought also comes that without mind, I will be nowhere, very vulnerable. But then how good am I with mind.’ Very good! Very good, just to see that. Many say, ‘I feel so scared, I’ll be so lost without the mind!’ And sometimes it comes up here jokingly, ‘How well are you doing so far?’ You see, where has the mind got you so far? If you were not lost then why would you be here? [Silence] This is a very good contemplation, very good. And this kind of trump card the mind will play and say, ‘Hey you will be lost, you’ll be in limbo, you won’t know what’s going on…you need to get a balance between spirituality and the world and be a little practical.’ You see, all of these things are very, very primitive to the mind. You read talks with Ramana, same questions people used to ask, ‘If I let go of my mind how ill I take care of my family responsibilities? I have a business.’ You see? If you go back to the Upanishads people come and say, ‘Oh great Sage, if I let go (only the language changed) of mind, who will take care of my kingdom?’ So for thousands and thousands of years, in one way or the other we’ve been asking the same question. And the primitive mind has the same trump card actually, it doesn’t have anything else. So as an antidote to this –I’ll be so lost without the mind, the great Master Bankei said, ‘All things are perfectly resolved in the Unborn.’ All things are perfectly resolved in the Unborn. That doesn’t sound like lost. [Chuckles]